I am old enough to remember back in 1970 the BBC comedy that starred Frankie Howerd as a roman slave that was the highlight of the week, although I was surprised that there were just 14 half hour episodes of show at that time. For the 50th anniversary of the first episode Spiteful Puppet Entertainment are publishing a fresh reworking of the format for an Audio recording for release on CD, Amazon and iTunes. It was therefore great fun to return to the Shaw Theatre , which I also first visited around 1970 to see an all star cast make that recording.
Barnaby Eaton-Jones has adapted a spin off stage play first staged in 2011,and written by Miles Tredinnick, into the audio revival and produced and directed the recording. He has updated and freshened the script with a running gag of roman texting, called slating using chalk and constant acknowledgement that this is an audio recording but retains the cheeky innuendo, silly puns and brilliant catchphrases that made the show a success. The word play cleverly confuses pater with patter, docks and Doc's and oars and whores.
